Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!bruce!trlluna!shiva!soh From: soh@shiva.trl.oz (kam hung soh) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Game vs Multitasking Message-ID: <1759@trlluna.trl.oz> Date: 4 Jun 90 23:01:46 GMT References: <7373@bula.se> Sender: root@trlluna.trl.oz Distribution: comp Lines: 114 NOTE: > = bjornk@bula.se (Bjorn Knutsson) writes: >> = mt87692@tut.fi (Mikko Tsokkinen) writes: bjornk@bula.se (Bjorn Knutsson) writes: >In article mt87692@tut.fi (Mikko Tsokkinen) writes: >[...] >>2. Should game multitask? >> - IMHO I at least don't want to play those shit games with multitasking on. >> But if we are talking about for example following "Multitasking": Game >> disables interrupts while playing but for example if you pause it it will >> turn interrupts back on. I would like to make my game work like this. But >> there are few drawbacks: Copy-protection is alot harder to make and you >> very easily run out of memory. ``Shit games'' with multitasking on are the sort of games that I prefer to play when I'm programming or downloading. That's why I'm a great fan of ``Shanghai'' and ``Conquest''. Yes, I admit it: I'm a slow moving slug who likes wargames and adventures. Who cares about games with nifty graphics and mind-blowing sound effects if the games aren't interesting? If I'm going to fork out Aus$60.00 for a game, it might as well be a game I can get my teeth into and masticate for months on end. ``Bards Tale 2'' is pretty yummy. > [...] >Word-in-the-manual, if done right, is OK. Any disk based protection is out. Hear, hear! TOO MUCH disk based protection seems to only disadvantage legitimate buyers and keep pirates in business. I can live with the ``check disk'' protection, but when the game does funny buggers with my drive (drag the head back and forth), I know I'll not be able to stand the game for long. >>3. Should game detect extra memory/diskdrives/processors? >> - IMHO memory is must because it makes the game lot more playable and HD-people >> don't argue about the loading speed. Extra drives eat memory which causes >> serious trouble in 512k machines. Processors are useless in simple scroll >> games because they at least should be using the blitter in nasty-mode so >> processors don't speed it up too much. Nowadays the games also must run on >> all motorola 680x0 family thanks to A3000. But by detecting I mean really >> notice the speed increase and add new things to game (BTW my program notices >> but noone of my friends has 68020/68030 so I dunno how much it helps:-). Seems like a lot of effort for nothing. Why not keep the game interrupt driven for the graphics and sound and use any spare processor time for updating various variables? I think ``Flight Simulator II'' on IBM-PCs has a constant game speed but increases the number of screen updates if there is a faster processor. That way, your littul ol' Cessna doesn't fly like an F-16. If IBM-PC programmers can do it, why can't Amiga programmers? Isn't the Amiga supposed to be a gosh-wow graphics based computer? :-> >>4. Should game be exitable? >> - IMHO exitable games are harder to protect and you can't destroy anything in memory >> and you will end up again without enough memory:-( Sound like bad programming to me. If the program cannot release all its allocated resources, then the program belongs to the junk heap. (Let's not get distracted by memory fragmentation problems!) Even with UNIX and megabytes of virtual memory, we have to write programs that do not consume too much memory or else our paying clients won't be able to run their programs. >> And I would like also to know how many of you people really play games while doing >>something else? If you do, do you really like those every now and then updating >>games with poor graphics (thanks to memory shortage). Me! Me! Remember the reflex slug? (Memory shortage? Poor updating? Your program must be using a ridiculous amount of RAM just to do your graphics. If you are an assembly programmer, as you claim in your signature, your code may require major redesign. If a mediocre programmer like me can program the VIC-20 to do horizontal bit-by-bit scrolling in 512 bytes, surely you can do better. Wot? The VIC-20 does not have bitmaps? Amazing what can be done with redefinable characters.) >I do and I like them. The most important aspect of a game is NOT cute >graphics. It's much more important that the game is fun to play. One >of my favorite games is The Colony. It multitasks, I can install it on >my harddisk and I can pull down it's window. Now, there are some other >aspects of this game that I don't like, but those would be the same >regardless if the game multitasked or not. The protection used is OK >as protections go. Now, I don't like any form of copy protection, but >I can see why it's needed. The solution used in The Colony is one of >the better I've seen. Hmm... What is this game about? Is it a nice meaty adventure game? Am I correct in assuming that the copy protection is a random keyword in the manual? I don't want to ramble on. Suffice to say that if a programmer states it can't be done, he's probably missing the point. >>-- >>Mikko "Assembler rules OK!" Tsokkinen >>Internet mt87692@tut.fi : UUCP tut!mt87692 : Bitnet mt87692@fintut >--- >Bjorn Knutsson / USENET: bjornk@bula.se or sunic!sics!bula!bjornk >Stangholmsbacken 44 / Phone : +46-8-710 7223 >S-127 40 SKARHOLMEN / "Oh dear, I think you'll find reality's on the >S W E D E N / blink again." -- Marvin The Paranoid Android ----------------------------------- Soh, Kam Hung Telecom Research Laboratories, P.O. Box 249, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia email: h.soh@trl.oz.au tel: +61 03 541 6403